FILE - In this Sunday, April 30, 2017 file picture, independent centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron looks at some of the 2,500 photographs of young Jews deported from France, during a visit to the Shoah memorial in Paris, France. France's leading Jewish group is meeting with President Emmanuel Macron and is expected to ask him about a rise in anti-Jewish violence and protest the possible re-publication of anti-Semitic pamphlets by a renowned writer. (Philippe Wojazer/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - In this Sunday, April 30, 2017 file picture, independent centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron stands at the "Mur des Justes" at the Shoah Museum, a wall on which 2,693 names of people who protected or saved Jews during World War II are engraved, in Paris,France. France's leading Jewish group is meeting with President Emmanuel Macron and is expected to ask him about a rise in anti-Jewish violence and protest the possible re-publication of anti-Semitic pamphlets by a renowned writer. (Philippe Wojazer/Pool Photo via AP, File)

CRIF president Francis Kalifat, right, and French President Emmanuel Macron pose during the 33rd annual dinner of the group CRIF, Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, in Paris Wednesday March 7, 2018. ( Ludovic Marin/ Pool Photo via AP)

From left to right, French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet, French President Emmanuel Macron, CRIF president Francis Kalifat, French president's wife Brigitte Macron and French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb pose during the 33rd annual dinner of the group CRIF, Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, in Paris Wednesday March 7, 2018. ( Ludovic Marin/ Pool Photo via AP)

CRIF president Francis Kalifat, center, poses with French President Emmanuel Macron, left, and French president's wife Brigitte Macron during the 33rd annual dinner of the group CRIF, Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, in Paris Wednesday March 7, 2018. ( Ludovic Marin/ Pool Photo via AP)

French president's wife Brigitte Macron, French President Emmanuel Macron, CRIF president Francis Kalifat, French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet and French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, from left to right, pose outside the Louvre Museum as they arrive to attend the 33rd annual dinner of the group CRIF, Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, in Paris Wednesday March 7, 2018. ( Ludovic Marin/ Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron, center left, pours himself wine as his wife Brigitte Macron looks on, during the 33rd annual dinner of the group CRIF, Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, in Paris Wednesday March 7, 2018. ( Ludovic Marin/ Pool Photo via AP)

France's Macron vows to fight anti-Semitism online and off

By PHILIPPE SOTTO

Mar. 08, 2018

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron pledged Wednesday to fight firmly against anti-Semitism wherever it surfaces, whether in the street or online, and to protect the nation's Jews amid growing concerns about intolerance.

In a speech to France's leading Jewish group, he insisted there is no reason for Jews to flee the country, which is home to the world's largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States.

"There are hatreds that are rising again, there are the worse kinds of crimes," Macron said at the annual dinner of the CRIF umbrella organization.

"We have understood, with horror, that anti-Semitism is still alive. And on this issue our response must be unforgiving. France would not be itself if Jewish citizens had to leave because they were afraid," he said.

He pledged continued protection for Jewish schools and synagogues and other sites as well as a new government plan to fight racism and anti-Semitism online, which is notably spreading among young people.

Macron also called for a Europe-wide effort to force internet platforms to remove content that feeds extremism.

The latest official figures show that anti-Semitic violence increased 26 percent last year in France and that criminal damage to Jewish places of worship and burials increased 22 percent.

Two attacks were particularly deadly. In 2012, three children and a teacher from a Jewish school were killed by Islamic extremist Mohammed Merah in Toulouse. In 2015, four customers of a Paris kosher supermarket were slain by another Islamic extremist, Amedy Coulibaly.

Macron also waded carefully into a heated debate that has split French intellectual circles over whether to publish anti-Semitic pamphlets of a renowned writer.

Gallimard, one of the largest, most influential and most prestigious French publishing houses, said in December it planned to republish for the first time since World War II a series of three fiercely anti-Semitic lampoons written between 1937 and 1941 by noted French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine.

Celine, who was convicted of being a wartime collaborator with France's Nazi occupiers before being granted amnesty, opposed reprinting the tracts before his death, which came in 1961.

The writer is best known for "Journey to the End of the Night," a much-acclaimed 1932 first novel that is still frequently studied by French high school students.

Controversy erupted in literary circles over the publication, between those who advocate total freedom of speech and those who warn against the dangers of such texts in the context of rising anti-Semitism.

"Celine was not a socialite anti-Semite, but a pro-Hitler anti-Semite," Marc Knobel, the CRIF's director of studies, told The Associated Press. "His pamphlets are appalling. They are crime-inducing. With them, Celine expressed his execration for the Jews, called for putting the Jews to death."

Antoine Gallimard, president of the publishing house, recently decided to suspend publication, while insisting he hasn't given up on the project.

Proponents of reprinting argue that the texts already are easily accessible on the internet and say that it is preferable the tracts be published with historical comments explaining their danger, revealing the darkest face of the writer.

Macron said France doesn't have "moral, historic or memorial police," but added, "I don't think we need these pamphlets" to understand Celine.

Also Wednesday, CRIF leader Francis Kalifat encouraged Macron to follow U.S. President Donald Trump's lead in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but Macron called the move an "error" that hurt peace efforts.